The Hidden Costs Of Maintenance Parts Management

Managing maintenance parts and supplies can be quite a challenge. This become a lot bigger if you have many types of equipment. Each type will need it own unique set of parts and supplies for corrective and preventive maintenance on the equipment. Equipment spares can also be quite expensive and add significantly to the maintenance budget.

How To Improve Your Maintenance Spare Parts Management

1) Identify Parts & Supplies Used

Identify parts required for different maintenance tasks. Try to estimate items needed over the next few months based on the equipment preventive maintenance schedules. This will help you manage inventory requirements and costs better. Holding inventory you do not need for several months adds to costs.

2) Using Just In Time Inventory Management

Depending on your suppliers (vendors) you may want to explore use of just in time inventory. This means you order & get parts just before maintenance jobs are to be done. At the same time try to avoid job delays because parts are not available. Costs of certain parts may be high. But they may be much less than the costs due to lost production or cascading equipment failures.

3) Identify Reliable Suppliers

Poor quality parts can result in early failures and more maintenance work. Maintenance records are useful to identify suppliers of quality parts. Corporate purchasing requirements may dictate your choice of suppliers. Still it can be possible to work with your purchasing department especially if you have statistics about vendor quality & reliability.

Use Your Maintenance Management Software

Experts estimate that organizations can save between 5-10% on their yearly spare parts inventory costs with a maintenance management program aka CMMS software. For example with a CMMS you:

1. Will have parts usage and inventory reports. With them you can better track inventory purchase & consumption.

2. Find out how many parts of each type you will need for preventive maintenance in the future. Use planning reports to calculate parts and quantities needed for future periods. This can help you apply for volume discounts when ordering spares and supplies.

3. Specify reorder levels when to restock items. The maintenance management software can warn you when each part/ spare falls below reorder levels. This means keeping less inventory on hand and saves costs in purchase & storage.

4. Can associate parts & supplies with equipment. When equipment is retired you will be able to identify parts that can be disposed since they are no longer needed.

5. Can review work orders reports to identify parts that fail frequently. You can identify poor quality parts and tag good & bad suppliers.

Find The Right CMMS Software

Get a free guide that can help you evaluate different maintenance software to see how well they will fit your requirements.